And all this she had drawn upon herself by her
giddy flirting. Oh! how she loathed the recollection of the hot
summer evening, when, worn out by stitching and sewing, she had
loitered homewards with weary languor, and first listened to the
voice of the tempter.
And Jem Wilson! O Jem, Jem, why did you not come to receive some of
the modest looks and words of love which Mary longed to give you, to
try and make up for the hasty rejection which you as hastily took to
be final, though both mourned over it with many tears. But day
after day passed away, and patience seemed of no avail; and Mary's
cry was ever the old moan of the Moated Grange--
"'Why comes he not?' she said,
'I am aweary, aweary.
I would that I were dead.'"
XIV. JEM'S INTERVIEW WITH POOR ESTHER.
"Know the temptation ere you judge the crime!
Look on this tree--'t was green, and fair and graceful;
Yet now, save these few shoots, how dry and rotten!
Thou canst not tell the cause. Not long ago,
A neighbour oak, with which its roots were twined,
In falling wrenched them with such cruel force,
That though we covered them again with care,
Its beauty withered, and it pined away.
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